Today's brief:

• Winds of change: How to think about gusty conditions in a new airplane. 
• Plus: The FAA officially digitizes aircraft registration, and ForeFlight wants to help you find a fair insurance premium. 

🛩️ Estimated time en route: 4 minutes

Landing in a crosswind requires the management of multiple variables simultaneously. While it may take some time, the skillset to perform a good crosswind landing eventually gels into an intuitive whole. 

Of considerable importance, however, is the fact that the effective crosswind technique and intuition developed by a high-wing pilot may not serve them well in a low-wing airplane, especially when there’s a significant difference in wing size. Even moving from a smaller low-wing to a larger low-wing can result in counterintuitive control inputs and timing in order to land an airplane that’s unfamiliar but has similar performance characteristics to airplanes to which you’re more accustomed. 

Here are a few areas to think about as you prepare to face gusty conditions in an airplane you’re still learning. 

Wing configuration
Consider the Piper Cherokee Six, which has a low-wing design with a relatively large wingspan and significant control surface area that contribute to its distinctive handling characteristics in crosswind conditions. The lower-wing configuration requires a more pronounced crab angle compared to high-wing aircraft like the Cessna 182.

Aileron and rudder coordination
The Cherokee Six’s control surfaces provide significant authority compared to smaller aircraft like the Piper Archer. This increased control authority allows for finer adjustments but requires more precise handling. In other words, you have more authority, but that’s because it’s necessary.

Power management in turbulence
In gusty conditions, maintaining a stable approach requires continuous power adjustments. Recommendations and techniques for managing power settings include power bracketing (continuous, small throttle changes to maintain an average airspeed) and adjusting the throttle preemptively to anticipate gusts, which is a skill, perhaps intuition, learned through experience.

Mental workload management
The complexity of crosswind landings increases your mental workload, particularly when you’re dealing with the nuances of a new airplane. Effective workload management involves maintaining focus on critical tasks while offloading unimportant ones from your mind. Your golfing buddy’s shouts of “miss it” while you are lining up your putt are a perfect example.  

In a relatively unfamiliar airplane, managing workload effectively includes balancing the increased attention on things like aileron and rudder coordination and power management — which may come naturally in aircraft with which you’re more familiar — with the need to maintain broader situational awareness. Monitoring environmental cues, such as wind direction and runway alignment, while anticipating near-instantaneous changes is paramount.  

Failing to keep your head out of the weeds can strip you of one of your most powerful tools: the go-around. Don’t try to fix a dodgy landing; set up for another one.

Frequency and recency
Mentally rehearsing outside the cockpit by determining what steps to take to focus and perform can help prepare you for high-workload situations like crosswind landings. Ongoing proficiency development is essential both for enhancing crosswind landing skills and avoiding extinction, the psychological phenomenon in which knowledge and skills gradually decay over time if they are not regularly practiced. 

Recurring practice on a flight simulator can help you refine your crosswind techniques in a controlled environment. When adjusting to the subtle differences of a new airplane, flight simulation allows you to fail in safety, learn from your errors, practice, and execute in the real world. 

Scenario-based training takes things a step further, enhancing decision-making skills by exposing you to a variety of challenging situations and requiring you to apply learned strategies. When navigating blustery crosswinds in an airplane you’re still kind of figuring out, success is a blend of art and science gained through experience. In the safety of a sim, get exposure to as many situations and variables as possible, learn how to handle them, commit the steps to memory, and maybe even write them down (checklist). 

Mastery lies in the details and requires a deep understanding of the environment, meticulous attention to technique, the mental fortitude to execute under pressure, and lots of practice. Ultimately, whether you’re in a new airplane or one you’ve been flying for years, the satisfaction of a perfectly executed crosswind landing is the result of frequency and recency.

The FAA recently published two final rules to simplify aircraft registration:

• The agency removed the requirement to submit original documents and sunsetted its practice of stamping documents. 
• It also amended regulations to facilitate the electronic issuance of aircraft registration and dealer's registration certificates.

Sean Duffy received Senate confirmation this week to head the U.S. Transportation Department. The U.S. Senate voted 77 to 22 to confirm Duffy, whom President Donald Trump nominated for the post.

ForeFlight introduced a new tool last week to help pilots compare their aircraft owner's insurance premiums with the average for similar pilots (based on aircraft type, flight experience, and other factors). The tool utilizes anonymized data reported by pilots to estimate a competitive rate for a pilot. 

AOPA published a brief survey on its website to collect information from aircraft operators about their experience using 100-octane unleaded avgas. 

GIF via Red Bull Media House

Italian pilot Dario Costa recently flew down the legendary Streif ski run in the Austrian Alps, hitting speeds up to 217 mph and pulling over 10Gs.